A summit out of the ordinary

The June European Council takes place in its customary two-day format next Thursday and Friday (26-27 June) – but almost everything else about it will be out of the ordinary.

On Thursday, the leaders of the European Union’s 28 member states will meet not in Brussels but in Ypres, West Flanders, to commemorate the outbreak of the First World War 100 years ago. (On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in Sarajevo, triggering the war that broke out one month later.) This will be the first time that the European Council has convened outside Brussels since the Lisbon treaty took effect in 2009.

Following commemorations in the late afternoon, the leaders will dine at the town hall, rebuilt after the war. Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, is determined that the dinner discussion focus entirely on the EU’s policy priorities for the next five years and not on nominations for senior posts, above all that of president of the European Commission.

“There will not be a discussion of names at Ypres,” an official involved in the preparations said. “Van Rompuy has been very clear about this. He does not want a mundane discussion of names, in light of the tragic past being commemorated.” As part of that plan, no news conferences or briefings are scheduled in Ypres, and after dinner, around 10pm, the leaders will travel to Brussels.

It will not be until lunchtime on Friday that the European Council will turn to a discussion of the nomination of Jean-Claude Juncker as Commission president, and other appointments linked to it. The formal business agenda for the summit includes signing off on the European Commission’s country- specific recommendations on structural reforms, national budgets and employment and fiscal policies, endorsement of strategic guidelines on justice and home affairs, notably on data protection and free movement, and a stock-taking of efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

In preparation for the debate about appointments, Van Rompuy’s office has drafted a paper on the European Union’s policy priorities for the next five years (the term in office of the next Commission), and the intention is that the European Council will endorse this. The priorities are a contribution to setting strategic directions for the EU as a whole, including the European Commission, and the exercise aims to give the European Council some control over the policies that a Juncker Commission can pursue, and even to placate some of the leaders who are ambivalent about Juncker.

Matteo Renzi, Italy’s prime minister, has made his backing of Juncker conditional on changes to the way a member state’s budget deficit is calculated, while François Hollande, France’s president, wants more time for France to comply with the budget rules. Van Rompuy believes that the current rules provide leeway for such re-interpretations and do not require change. Van Rompuy met Renzi in Rome yesterday (18 June) to discuss Renzi’s conditions for backing Juncker.